Unanswered Questions of Loneliness

I'm lonely. I'm surrounded by my family, even as I sit and write, and I get along so well with them and love them to pieces, but I'm still so lonely. This weekend I babysat for two different families on Friday and Saturday night, and it was wonderful to have other people to chat with. I just miss having people other than my family to hang out with and to talk to. I especially miss being around people my own age. I have no friends here, and it's starting to weigh heavily on me.

Someone recommended a college-age church group to me early this summer, but at the time I shrugged it off. That requires a completely new start, which I've never been good at. I'm not good at breaking out of my shell and getting to know people with whom I have no prior connection. It's a burden that I don't really want to have to deal with at this point in my life. It's kind of a selfish perspective on it, but that's where I was. However, my church has no programs for people my age, and really very few members around my age. In fact, there are four of us who attend regularly: a 28-year-old girl that is also helping out the high school youth group and in fact is co-leading a girls' small group with me, a girl a year older than me that I've known forever, one of my best friend's fiancees, and myself. Friday night after I was finished babysitting, I was chatting with the parents about how, in fact, I'm lonely. They said they would start praying for a guy for me, and a friend, and I laughed and said, "How bout the other way around?" :) But I was thinking today about how bad it's getting, and so I decided to look up this group that had been recommended to me. The problem is that it meets on Thursday nights at 7. I work till 6 (or sometimes later), and then have to drive back over to this side of the lake, which takes an hour. Even if I were to leave from work and drive straight there, I wouldn't make it on time. So that's not an option.

Even as I'm struggling with being lonely, it leads into another heart-battle that I'm fighting. Is this a "righteous" struggle for me to have? Or am I simply not relying on the sufficiency of Christ. Because of this question, I've found my next podcast series to listen to on my commutes. I just started this morning to listen to a podcast from a different RUF chapter, this one at the University of Virginia. This particular study is on the book of Colossians and... the sufficiency of Christ!!! Magic answer to my question, right? I don't know. In some ways I feel that I'm justified in struggling with my loneliness. God created us to be in community with each other, and it's part of us reflecting His image. On the other hand, I do have a community around me, so am I just being too specific with the exact community I desire? Should I be able to rely on Christ to be enough for me, and allow him to put aside my loneliness? Or should I be able to trust that God will put someone in my life to ease my loneliness, and I should just buck up and be patient until then? All these questions fly around in my head unanswered, and I feel like I'm running in circles. I feel lonely, then I feel guilty for feeling lonely, then I get upset with myself for feeling guilty potentially unnecessarily.

I don't know if I'll get the answers. This is just another situation where there is really no resolution, so I just have to work through it in order to get it out of my head.